


Things John Couldn’t Possibly Write In His Blog

by phqyd_roar



Series: Things John Couldn't Possibly Write In His Blog [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, Bottom John, Dom Sherlock, Dom/sub Play, First Kiss, Fluff, Good BDSM Etiquette, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Kink Negotiation, M/M, POV First Person, POV John Watson, Pining John, Potentially triggering, Romance, Self-Hatred, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Repression, Slow Burn, Stream of Consciousness, Sub John, Top Sherlock, submissive tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-26 05:50:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10780884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phqyd_roar/pseuds/phqyd_roar
Summary: John Watson is possibly the most stoic man in the Sherlock universe. What is he hiding under that facade? What are all these things he can’t tell his therapist, can’t write in his blog, can’t even allow himself to say?"My flatmate is the world’s only genius consulting detective, and I am the world’s foremost closeted perverted queer. I wonder what notes Ella would scribble down if she caught wind of that."





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a lot of artistic interpretation on exactly WHAT John is being so stoic to hide, drawing a little bit from my own experiences. Consider this a mind-blog, because my John here has so far repressed all the things about himself that scares him that he would never write it down even just for himself. Please read the tags and consider avoiding it if it is potentially triggering for you.

I’ve never told anyone that I’m gay. Well, not completely gay, possibly bi leaning more towards gay, but still, no one knows. I don’t talk about it. Ever. I saw how it was for my sister when she came out, and she was always the brave one. I’m John, John Watson, boring and responsible and always doing the right thing. I’ve never thought of allowing people to see me like that. So I pretend to be as normal as possible, even to myself. Sometimes it almost works. But sometimes I still fantasize about submitting to another man, spreading my legs and being fucked. I finger myself when I wank, and I love it, but I don’t dare to buy a dildo because that would be confirming it a bit more. Thinking, that’s alright. What’s in my head is my own. Things that come out of my mouth become part of the real world, and I can’t let this side of me be real.

It all changed when I was invalided home from Afghanistan. I was broken, crippled, and depressed, cut off from most of my former friends, and my parents were already dead. It seemed at such a time, being gay wouldn’t make it that much worse.

When I met Sherlock, I was instantly infatuated. I was more attracted to him than I had been to any man I knew, and I was a closeted gay man with submissive tendencies in the army. It was so sexy the way he knew everything about me. I wouldn’t even have the choice to hide. It was thrilling that he was arrogant and demanding and seemed to love calling the shots. Hinting at Sherlock that I was interested in him was the bravest that I’ve ever gotten, but I was rubbish at it, it was awkward, and he brushed me off. Makes sense, really. Sherlock is gorgeous, and brilliant, and could have anyone he wants, male or female. There’s no reason he would want washed-up, crippled John Watson. Also, we were going to be roommates. It would have been weird. I understand that.

That, however, doesn’t change the fact that Sherlock turns me on an embarrassing amount. Seriously, I had to take a leaf out of his book and get some bathrobes just to hide awkward boners around the flat. He doesn’t seem to have any sense of personal space, and when he suddenly leans over me or something like that, my pulse shoots up so fast I’m terrified he would hear it. One time we were at Bart’s and he made me get his phone for him _out of his front pocket_. It took all my years of manly experience dispelling inconvenient boners to keep from tenting my trousers while I did it.

He’s impossible. And I’m terrified, just downright petrified, of how much I love it. This is unhealthy, isn’t it? Of course it is. Nothing about my mental state is healthy. But there is a fat chance in hell of me telling this to my therapist. Can’t even imagine it.

What I can imagine, though, in increasingly vivid, obscene details, is all the things I’d like to do for Sherlock involving his cock. I’ve seen it. I don’t think that man has an inch of modesty. Either that, or he doesn’t realise when he’s slouched on the sofa wearing nothing but a bloody thin silk dressing gown and his thighs are spread, I have a tantalising view of his knob. But then Sherlock knows everything, so maybe he does it on purpose? I’ve considered that train of thought, and mainly I just sound like a self-justifying pervert.

 

“You see but you do not observe, John,” Sherlock purrs at me in my mind. “There are at least eight things you should be able to discern from my exposed genitalia.”

 

I’m not Sherlock Holmes, though. All I’m thinking when I’m sneaking peeks over my newspaper (aware that I am trying escape the notice of the most observant man alive), is that he has a really lovely cock. I would love to have it in my mouth. I wonder about that a lot. The taste, the texture, the heavy, masculine smell of it. I think about what Sherlock would do if I just put down this stupid newspaper, get on my knees in front of him, and put his cock in my mouth. For some reason it’s extra good that he isn’t hard, and I would have to work for it, make him feel good, feel his flesh harden and engorge on my tongue. This. This sort of thought absolutely always leads to a raging erection which I then have to get rid of by imagining what would actually happen if I did that.

I think Sherlock is probably asexual, but who knows? Either way, he would hardly be overjoyed at being molested by his supposedly straight flatmate. 

“What on earth is going on in your vapid little head, John?” He might say.

“Ah. No, thank you. Married to my work, I said.”

Or maybe he would just fling himself out of my reach with offended flair, and order me, “Get out.”

I can’t risk those things happening. I like Sherlock desperately. Maybe I love him. Never been in love before, don’t have data and such, no idea if this is it. I do know that I can’t go back to the way it was before I met him. I was so alone. So dead. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

So yeah. This is my life. My flatmate is the world’s only genius consulting detective, and I am the world’s foremost closeted perverted queer. I wonder what notes Ella would scribble down if she caught wind of that.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon compliant with the events of The Blind Banker.

I think Sherlock is onto me. Possibly, not definitely, but the evidence is building up.

I’ve started dating again. I need some sort of relief for this height of sexual frustration. Lately I’ve been having dreams almost nightly, these strange, sexual dreams that end up making me aroused and unsatisfied and deeply unhappy. In the dreams I’m always trying to get it on with a man, whom I know is Sherlock, though they never actually look like Sherlock (a two finger salute from my subconscious if I’ve ever seen one). I’m always the one trying to get his clothes off, pathetically eager, while he just allows me to do it in such a way that his passivity only emphasizes his control. It never works. Sometimes I can’t get him out of his clothes. Sometimes I get as far as penetration, but his dick is weird and floppy, or I can’t guide it into me no matter how I aim. I wake up hard and have a stale, businesslike sort of wank, and I’m jumpy and irritable in front of Sherlock after I come downstairs.

Obviously, this can’t go on. I’m trying to get a move on with my trusty self-prescription of trying-to-be-normal. I got a job at a clinic so my life doesn’t revolve around him. I go out a couple nights a week to chat up girls. For some reason, Sherlock is sabotaging my efforts, and I can’t tell if that’s just him being him or if he is in fact conducting some sort of experiment on me.

First off, I may have had a bit of a chance with Sarah. I could have blown that one on my own, but Sherlock sure sped it along. Sure, yes, that point in the night when Sarah said, “You don’t seem that into me and you talk about your flatmate a disturbing amount” (with kinder paraphrasing) was somewhere on my top ten list of awkward fuck-ups. But I think the part where “my flatmate invited himself on our date, provoked a Chinese circus assassin, and got us kidnapped in his name”, that part, yep, has risen to the top of that awkward fuck-up list.

So then we were getting patched up after the whole debacle, and I squared my shoulders and went up to Sarah and said, “So. I’m guessing there’s not going to be a second date?”

She gave me this awful, pitying, knowing look, and said, “John, it’s not so much the near-death experience as that we got into that situation because your life is so entangled with Sherlock’s that mafia ladies can’t tell you two apart.”

That. Felt. Like. Shit. I had a nice steady stream of swear words going on in my head while I inclined my head and just looked at the sky for a moment. Then the stream dried up into familiar self loathing. That is fine. That is all fine. John Watson, you will fix this, and it will all be fine.

I thought things at the clinic would get awkward as balls after that, but evidently Sarah was not that into me either, because she’s taken to acting all buddy-buddy and periodically asks after Sherlock. The way she does it alarms me a little and I end up sounding like an emotionally challenged straight British man. My answer goes along the lines of, “Fine, hm. He’s good, yeah.” There’s not much variation. I suppose that’s better than the real answer. I don’t know the real answer.

So then I’m on a date with this other girl. Blonde, pleasant looking, has vag, as different from Sherlock as it’s possible to be. Anna? Andie? Amy? Fuck, I’m a bastard. 

There I was, concentrating so hard on _not talking about Sherlock_ that I was barely hearing a word she was saying and my phone trills, and I fumble to get it. It’s Sherlock. Of course it is. He tells me to come home, asap. I make my excuses and rush back to Baker Street, and it turns out Sherlock wants my medical opinion on whether he was correctly dissecting a pig’s bowels. I sigh and act put upon and try to be angry. In fact, I’m angry that I’m not more angry. Does that even make sense?

“You can’t just call me out of a date to answer a question, Sherlock. The whole world is not actually at your beck and call.” I make the attempt to have principles.

Sherlock could have pointed out my hypocrisy with any number of times I’ve answered his beck and call without complaint. But no. What he did was worse.

Sherlock stopped dissecting for a moment to give me a withering, sardonic look. In fact, I should name that look. Trademark that look. It’s the “we both know what’s going on here” look.

And that just can’t be the case.

Could it?

What if it is?

What if he knows and thinks I’m pathetic, but to be fair, quite useful, and is just going to keep me around for his convenience?

I think I stared back at him for a while and just turned and walked away without a scrap of social etiquette. 

I took my clothes off and got into bed. For some reason, I took all my clothes off. I lay there in the nude with the feeling of a dead weight on my chest, not sure exactly what it was that I was feeling. One part was clear though. If that’s what Sherlock is doing, I would fucking let him do it. I _do_ let him do it. 

I tried to have a wank to take my mind off it, which is the time-tested tradition of men all over the world in not thinking about things that are not good to think about. The thing is, my problem also happens to be my usual wank material.

I imagined that I was, in fact, tied down in Sherlock’s bed, spread and helpless, as Sherlock wanked me for his amusement. But when I tried to picture his face, Sherlock resisted my attempt to have him look at all aroused. Instead, a fucking flow chart elbowed its way into my imagination. Now Sherlock’s other hand was flying over his keyboard, his attention entirely focused on his charts. No, that’s not quite true. His attention was on me, but only in so far as I was data. Respiration rates, blood pressure, level of arousal, reaction to different grips. So absorbed was I in this fantasy (is it still a fantasy if it’s practically a waking nightmare?) that I almost forgot it was my own hand wringing an orgasm out of me, and I cried out, anguished, louder than advisable with our thin walls.

After that, I was (embarrassingly) too scared to go to sleep, lest my dream buddy also turned sinister scientist. I lay until daybreak with my dread pooling and crusting on my gut along with my spunk, which I couldn’t bring myself to clean off.

This is really more than a bit not good. And my usual tricks are proving useless when faced with Sherlock. Who wouldn’t be?


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon compliant through events of The Great Game

Why couldn’t I be Moriarty?

That’s the sort of thought I have nowadays, apparently. I’m not interesting. I’m tolerable and convenient, for sure, but I’m no serial killer.

Moriarty is like Sherlock. He knows him, somehow, in a stalker fan type of way. This game of theirs is some sort of courtship ritual for sociopathic geniuses.

When I first met Sherlock and he said he was a “high-functioning sociopath” I thought he was being sarcastic. I’m no psychologist, but I would bet the M.D. after my name that Sherlock has a perfectly fine range of emotion. He just enjoys rationalizing them out of the way because he doesn’t see them as having any use. I have to admit, it seems to work for him. All this, however, is different, and it’s frankly scaring me. If all these people with lives and fears who are tied up in Sherlock and Moriarty’s game is just a footnote to him. Well. What am I?

Do I have to be a genius to be human in his eyes?

Do I have to be a murderer to catch his attention?

I can’t. I’ve obviously very mundane mental abilities. I may have killed people in the army, but that was not murder. It was survival. I reach the conclusion that I’m not a murderer, and you know what, I’m just a little bit disappointed.

Since this all started, it’s like I’ve been discarded for a shinier new toy. After my disturbed and sleepless night, I found Sherlock about to leave the bloody country without telling me. He came back the same day, but that was because the case was boring. If I wasn’t awake in the early morning, and the Minsk guy had been legit, Sherlock would have faffed off to Russia without given a thought to me. 

Sherlock seems to be training me to be him, detective-wise, but sadly I’m not any good. I have no doubt he would have solved the whole Andrew West ordeal in five minutes. Possibly three. He’s avoiding me, pushing me away from him, even, and I don’t want to think too closely why. Usually he wants me with him every step of the way, basking in my admiration, preening at his cleverness. This time, he keeps splitting the two of us up. Does he find Moriarty a better partner? An equal?

It’s a testimony to how stupid I was with thinking soppy, jealous-boyfriend thoughts that not a whit of my combat training kicked in to save me from being abducted off the street. 

Of course Moriarty is that odd bloke Molly’s seeing. That girl has got a type. I would shake her hand, but I’m a bit tied up and at the mercy of a serial killer. He’s sitting on a changing room bench, humming under his breath, texting on his bloody fucking phone. It’s like looking at a less good-looking and more evil Sherlock. They would suit each other.

I suppose this morbid love story ends with getting the possible usurper out of the way before their happily ever after? If he’s going to kill me, he’s taking his sweet time.

“Are you quite comfortable, Dr. Watson?” Moriarty says, looking up with a little grin. “Then again, I’m sure you’ve _dreamed_ of being in this position.”

Jesus _fucking_ Christ. I gave a panicked jerk against the industrial rope tying me to the lockers, which of course was not helpful. Moriarty laughed.

“Oh, don’t be like that. I know you’d love to be wearing less, but to be honest, I’m not actually interested.”

He slid upright with serpentine grace, holding up his phone to show me.

“See, honey, I’ve got a hot date.” 

Yep. He did, too. Sherlock’s website, asking him to rendezvous at The Pool, and he was already _here_ with _me_. How could I fucking compare? 

“Don’t worry, sweetie pie. I haven’t forgotten you. I know, don’t you just want Sherlock to reaaaaally look at you?” His gaze slid down my body, settling on my crotch. “You make it so hard for me to be menacing. It isn’t threatening when you’re already gagging for it, is it?”

Moriarty clapped his hands, and two heavily armed henchmen came into the room. Carrying a fucking ton of semtex. 

“I hope you’ll forgive me for being uncreative. But why break it when it works?”

Chortling loudly at his own words, Moriarty swaggered from the room.

“Talk to you later, darling!”

This was it. I felt oddly calm as I was wrapped in several kilos of explosives. Maybe Moriarty was going to blow me up in front of Sherlock. That seemed…fine. I don’t know. This is not a situation for deep thoughts.

Seeing Sherlock was almost painful, like seeing an old lover after years apart, when we were neither lovers nor long separated. Some part of me had a good chuckle at the irony of me wanting to be Moriarty for days, and now being his fucking voice piece. All other parts of me were on survival autopilot, soldier instinct. While Sherlock and Moriarty were flirting, I was looking for ways to get Sherlock and/or myself out of this mess. I can barely remember what was happening until somehow Moriarty left.

“You ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool, people might talk,” I found myself saying.

Sherlock looked startled. That was when I remembered I did not usually make jokes about my sexuality. I’m usually more uptight than a nun. But that doesn't do any good, does it? If Moriarty knows what I am, it must mean it’s written on me. Because it’s written nowhere else. Here I’ve been, thinking I’m good and hidden, when all along all it takes for someone like Moriarty, like Sherlock, is to look at me. He knows.

I hardly even care when Moriarty does a double back to threaten our lives. I hadn’t been properly expecting to live through this. So the whole anticlimactic phone conversation was really quite annoying.

If you’re going to be a super villain, show some dedication to your part. Watch James Bond, for Christ’s sake.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Sherlock kissed me, I was wrapped in an orange shock blanket and not thinking about anything.

The first time Sherlock kissed me, I was wrapped in an orange shock blanket and not thinking about anything.

“For God’s sake,” he said. 

Then he tugged the shock blanket off me, took my face in his hands, and pressed his lips to mine.

What do I feel about that kiss? Hm. If I ever did cocaine, that would be what it would feel like when I slid the needle into my vein. Terror, panic, disbelief, and euphoria vied for the main stage in my newly rebooted head.

“Better?” Said Sherlock, a bit condescendingly. 

“Did you just try to kiss me better?” 

“Evidently. Why, is it no good? More, less? Do you require an orgasm?”

“What?” I said. It was not a very good expression of all the alarm bells shrieking in my mind.

“We’re leaving,” Sherlock decided.

He tugged me by the hand, waved off the paramedics, dodged DI Gregson, and did his usual sorcery to summon a cab from thin air. Once we were in the cab, he let go of my hand, and didn’t seem inclined to start talking until we got home, so I stayed mum as well and looked out of my side of the window.

It would have been nice to go back to being numb and thinking of nothing, but Sherlock definitively jerked me out of that by kissing me at a crime scene. The crime scene, even. In front of about a dozen policemen and paramedics. Am I out of the closet now? Not certain how this works. 

After we got back to 221B, it was more awkward. I thought Sherlock had some sort of plan, but apparently not, unless it involves sitting in his chair lopsidedly in his Thinking Pose and paying me no attention.

“Sherlock,” I said, aiming my attention mostly at the window. “Why did you do that?”

“Yes,” he replied decisively.

I stared at him. Maybe he was in shock as well? 

Sherlock got up and into my personal space, leaned down, and…took my pulse at my neck.

“You’re attracted to me. You want to have sex with me. Let’s.”

Have you ever wanted something so badly, with all the force of your existence, thinking that you could never have it, then have someone go, “Oh, that? Here you go.” You know what that feels like?

Fucking suspicious, is what.

Sherlock kind of maneuvered me into his room, closed the door, and started taking off his clothes. He gave me a “why aren’t you getting a move on” look, so I got to stripping too.

There’s so much of him, pale and lean, all coiled strength, and next to him I look stout and weathered and sagging. I’ve never been self-conscious in the bedroom, but I’ve never been with a man. I’ve never been with Sherlock.

What am I doing? This is Sherlock. This can’t end well.

And, well, Sherlock immediately proves me right by producing a bottle of lube and a condom, kneeling on the bed with his legs spread, and saying in a bored sort of tone, “Proceed.”

“Is this?” A horrible thought entered my head. “Is this a…pity fuck?”

“No.” Sherlock flopped around to look at me. “You want to, and I don’t mind.”

“That’s the definition of a pity fuck.”

“I don’t pity you. I don’t…pity.”

“Right,” I said, actual bile rising to my throat. “No. Whatever this is, um. No.”

I escape back to my own room and wish fervently for a lock on the door. I should get one tomorrow. Better yet, I should pack my bags and get the hell out tomorrow before I embarrass myself any further.

I lie in bed giving myself a talking to, generally along the lines of, “this situation has gone to shit and you need to get out”, but my brain keeps coming up with a counterargument that goes along the lines of “but I don’t want to.” I think of how Clara doesn’t even want to see Harry anymore, as though that’s somehow relevant, and I think about what my parents said when Harry came out.

Some people may assume that my parents had to be pretty shitty people for me to end up this fucked up, but no, it’s all me. My parents were just normal, conservative, working middle class people who shared in the general homophobia of their generation. They probably wouldn’t spit on you or anything if you were a gay person they randomly met, they would just comment on it around the dinner table later that day like you were some sort of rare mutant species. I can’t imagine how traumatizing that must have been for Harry. She was always the rebel. She made the Watson’s talked about along the street we lived on, made mum cry and dad sit around, smoking and swearing, and when people came round to comfort my parents it was always, “well, now, it’s not such a huge deal, is it? Society is different now! And you’ve still got John, he’s such a dear.” 

And I don’t, I _don’t_ think there’s anything wrong with being gay. Or queer, or any of the other stuff you can be. I just seem to have inherited the whole force of my parents’ “but why does it have to happen to me, it’s not supposed to happen to me” philosophy. 

When I was about eleven and reading that autobiographical story from Roald Daul where he describes in pinprick detail being corporally disciplined at a boy’s school, I had my first wank. (Is this the sort of thing people want to read on my blog? Fucking no!) It was such a thrill, so brilliant, no idea why it was so good to imagine being scolded and caned and humiliated. I used to steal a wooden spoon from the kitchen and lock myself in the storage room, pull my trousers down, and spank myself with it until I could come just from pulling on my cock once or twice. Sometimes it hurt a bit afterwards, when I was sitting in class or something, and I could think about how deliciously wrong it was. Other times, I would feel a bit sick about what I do. Surreal to think of myself kneeling in the dusty storage room between mine and Harry’s baby toys, getting off on hitting myself, when I’m playing rugby, or in a school play, or answering a question in class. Why do I like this? People aren’t supposed to be like this. Some people are like this, maybe, but life isn’t good for them. Not good the way it is for John Watson, bright and wholesome and caring and going to med school.

I’m not that John Watson anymore. I’ve already proved shit at being normal. What if I was that other John Watson instead? 

What if I was the greedy cock slut I sometimes, very quietly, think about being, who sucks cock in dark alleys and pays for a meal by bending over the manager’s desk, what if I let people tie me up and hurt me and tell me what to think so I don’t have to wonder anymore? 

Well. That’s frightening too. I can’t actually live like I’m in some hardcore porn.

But maybe, there’s something in there, in between? 


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock asks John on a date.

“That is _not_ the definition of a pity fuck.”

Sherlock did that thing where he continues a conversation from five days ago or when I wasn’t even home.

“Yes it is,” I said, because for once I knew what he was talking about.

“No. My research indicates that there needs to be an unbalanced amount of desire from the participants for it to qualify as a pity fuck.” Sherlock stopped to make a face, as though he was offended at having to say ‘pity fuck’ twice in one day.

I gave him an expectant face. Yes, sure, your point being? 

“John, do you really think-” He stopped. Tugged at his curls, looking frustrated.

Yeah. The end of that sentence was probably something about my intelligence.

“John. Would you like to go on a date with me.”

“What?”

“A date. Where two people who like each other go out and have fun, I have been reliably informed.” He straightens his jacket and looks at me rather crossly, as if I am being terribly inconvenient in not reading his mind. 

“A romantic date,” I clarified, because maybe he really hadn’t gotten that the last time I told him what a date was. “In which two people try to have a, you know, romantic relationship.”

“Yes, John.”

“Uh. Okay.” I nod decisively, stand up, grab my jacket, and say, “Air. Work. Got to go. Text me.”

“Air, work?” I repeat to myself, disgusted, as I flee down the street. “Bloody hell, you are a mess. And you don’t fucking have work, it’s a fucking Saturday.”

Oh, hell. A Mycroftian car is parked just outside the tube station where cars aren’t supposed to park. I feel like being a dick about it, because honestly, one unpredictable Holmes in one day is enough for me, thanks. So I look at my watch, nod, and then do an around face to walk in the complete opposite direction. One minute later, the car is crawling patiently along beside me as I walk. 

Fine. I knock on the window, and it rolls down to reveal Mycroft’s smug face.

“Are you quite sure where you’re going, Dr. Watson?”

No I’m fucking not, really. It’s called taking a walk, which you probably never do, you probably get carried everywhere by four secret servicemen. My mutinous face is reflected back at me, distorted and grotesque in the shiny finish of the car.

I get in.

“What can I do for you, Mycroft?”

“I merely wanted to offer my felicitations.”

“Have you bugged our flat?” Again?

Mycroft looked horribly like I’d just informed him of something. He took out from his black leather briefcase a black file from which he withdrew a still CCTV image which had caught Sherlock leaned over a blurry shorter someone in an orange blanket.

Fuckity fuck. 

“Alright. Is this the moment where you offer me more money? Warn me to stay away from little brother? Give me the ‘break his heart I’ll break your legs’ speech?”

“The conversation between the older brother and the potential suitor is a tradition I’m rather fond of,” he says primly.

“Yeah? The feeling’s not mutual.”

“John, my brother is an idealist. As I am quite the opposite, I do not pretend to understand his reasoning, but I do know something of the way he works.”

“What are you saying?”

“He has chosen you. Hence, you are his ideal.” 

Mycroft fixes me with a stern baleful stare as if he hadn’t just spouted off the most alarming statement in the history of statements.

I make a general “look at me” gesture.

“Whose _ideal_ would look like this?”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

I am silent. This idea bounces off the firewalls of my head, denied entry by the original occupants, who say, that’s not the way it is at all. But it’s obstinate. It bounces back again, and again, and it’s wearing down my walls.

“I shall not bore you with the rest of the customary speech, then. I know how you hate the drudgery of the mundane. Shall we assume we understand each other, then?”

That would be quite a leap of a presumption, to be honest. I’m not sure I understand at all. But I’ve really had enough of the prickling unease of being stared at by Mycroft Holmes, so I nod and I get out of the car. I’m back on Baker Street.

 

Best part about being on a date with Sherlock Holmes: the dinner conversation.

We’ve been out to eat together loads of times, yet it’s never been this awkward. It’s like he read a Wikihow article on how to have a first date. He’s been chivalrously opening doors. He asked me if I was cold (It’s April. He’s the one who flounces about in a coat that’s more flair than warmth all the time). We’re at this fancy French restaurant we’ve never been to, sat at a cosy booth, with a rose in a prissy glass vase and candles next to the complementary water. I kind of want to laugh. 

Then, he goes, “Why do you keep saying you’re not gay?”

I wish that Wikihow article had said, “Don’t jump into awkward topics straight off.”

Being eloquent as I am, I shrugged. Had some wine. Looked at the candles.

“Well, I am,” Sherlock continued, staring at me.

“That’s fine,” I said at once, automatically.

“Hmmm.” Sherlock made that face where something clicked into place.

Then we settled into more (alarmingly) normal first date conversation. 

-What do your parents do? 

Me: office jobs

Sherlock: professor mum and small landed gentry dad 

-Did you play sports when you were young? 

Me: rugby 

Sherlock: some form of martial arts 

-Why are siblings such pains in the butt? 

Me: is envied and ribbed by sibling for being the golden boy of the family

Sherlock: envies and ribs sibling for being golden boy of the family (HA.)

This goes well. So well, in fact, that before I know it I’m asking a question that’s really been making me wonder. 

“So. You don’t have to answer this, but…are you a virgin?”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, perfectly matter-of-fact.

“Okay,” I say, because, it would sound odd either way, wouldn’t it, if I thought it was good or bad? I’m dying to ask why. Maybe Sherlock is just homosexual in a platonic sort of way. And that would be fine. But I’m curious. Asking “why are you a virgin”, though, is ruder than I dare be. 

“I don’t like people, John. Why would I like them at their basest instincts, seeking sexual gratification?”

“Oh,” I say (like an idiot). That was me answered. And my face must have been visibly crestfallen, because Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes, then leaned forward to grab my collar.

“I like _you_ , John.”

Oh, God. Scent is such a funny thing. Usually all my nose does is pick up a variety of nasty smells - petrol, piss, disinfectant at the clinic - that isn’t actually all that helpful to me as a modern British male. Now it’s picking up Sherlock’s expensive cologne (light, woodsy, a bit spicy) and sending signals of arousal down to the trouser region. Not at all good in smart trousers.

“I’m…people.”

That’s what I come out with, after Sherlock says ‘I like you’. I must officially be the worst romancer (?) of all time. If this was a crap telly programme this is where the audience would boo me and Sherlock would give me the boot. (You are the weakest link. Goodbye.)

Sherlock doesn’t give me the boot. He gives me a satisfied little smirk, the one that says he’s found new leads in a case but isn’t going to tell Lestrade because it would spoil his fun.

“No, you’re not.”


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock have a blissful honeymoon period.

Being gay is fine, being a hardcore masochist, not so much.

Sherlock should never find out that the moment I fully realised this man was trouble for me was when he flapped off saying he “left his riding crop in the mortuary.” (What was he doing with his riding crop in a _mortuary_? Could he do it to me, please?)

He hasn’t found out yet, and we’ve been having sex for a few months now. Wow. And, yes, I am now officially gay, thank you very much, and people around us know that Sherlock and I are in a relationship. It hasn’t been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. If I was as into data analysis as Sherlock, I would probably make a chart splitting them into,

Reaction A: I knew there was something going on with you two!

and Reaction B: Sherlock? Are you serious? _Sherlock?_ We’re talking about the same guy?

Mrs Hudson is in camp A, of course. She seems dead chuffed that she now has anecdotes to share when she chats with Mrs Turner about her married couple. We’ve been getting quite a steady stream of baked goods, and with it, advice as to how to have a successful love life. Harry too. I had no idea all it took to turn around sibling relations was to join her on the same side of the playing field (or is it a different playing field entirely?) She keeps commenting teasing, childish stuff on my blog and offering to meet up to teach me the ropes of being gay. I told her I think I've got a handle on it so far, thanks. And stop drunk texting me, you're almost forty.

Lestrade and the usual lot at the Yard heard about Sherlock and I from Gregson’s people. They’ve now dubbed Sherlock snogging me in a shock blanket Snog of the Year. We’ve had better snogs since then, really, but I suppose firsts are important and should be commemorated. Lestrade told me off for not getting together with Sherlock on the date he had in the betting pool. I told him that if he wanted that to happen, I would have had to know there was a betting pool. And if I had known, I would have been quite pissed off. 

Anderson and Donovan are obviously in camp B. Anderson has added homophobic quips to his collection of nasty comments, but the tongue on Sherlock still cuts him to shreds. It was a bit surprising to realise that yes, I just got hate speech aimed at me, and it didn't make me any less than before. Anderson is still an arse, and I'm still, well, me. I don’t mind Sally so much, she means well. She just thinks the worst of Sherlock. During the Tilly-Briggs cruise case she pulled me aside and gave me a lecture along the lines of, “don’t let him pressure you into having weird sex you’re not comfortable with, who knows what he likes, he keeps eyeballs in the microwave.”

Indeed, I wish Sherlock pressured me into having weird sex. Despite his general demanding personality, Sherlock is not all that demanding in bed. He doesn’t seem to have much of a libido. (Probably how he managed to stay a virgin until thirty-four.) Me, on the other hand, I have a raging libido for a man my age. So that’s not exactly perfect, but I’m not complaining. I have Sherlock. 

We’ve tried penetration, both ways. We only tried it with me on top once. It doesn’t turn me on very much, and there’s no hiding that sort of thing from Sherlock, so we haven’t done it since. When Sherlock first fucked me, I was so excited I came twice before he did. He thinks it’s his excellent prostate stimulation skills. That’s actually only part of it. I actually really liked how much it hurt when he first pushed into me. Since that’s the only time during sex he hurts me, really, it’s secretly my favourite part. (I know. I’m still fucked up.) I have to restrain myself from whimpering, since I don’t want to sound like a mewling submissive and tip him off to the fact that something’s wrong with me.

Since Sherlock doesn’t want sex as much as me, and god knows I don’t want to pressure him into having sex, there’s still a lot of moments where I catch myself staring at Sherlock having filthy fantasies. Nowadays, though, when he catches me I get a blowjob. Oh yeah, it turns out he _did_ know I could see his junk when he was sprawled on the sofa. (“I could see you getting aroused, John. It was quite obvious.”) From what he’s said, Sherlock probably qualifies as demisexual. At the same time as I was getting increasingly anguished with my crush on him, Sherlock found himself growing more and more attracted to me. He struggled with it too, though not in the way I struggled with myself.

To Sherlock’s rational scientist mind, sentiment is always a weakness. Since he was young, he had reasoned that having attachments caused people to have pressure points that could be exploited by their enemies. His conclusion, then, was that he should just not have attachments. That didn’t work out very well, though. His denial of it just meant that his enemy (Moriarty) saw through it before he did, and manipulated his pressure point anyway (hence me strapped into explosives with a sniper aimed at me). After Moriarty pointed out that Sherlock did have a heart, he was forced to concede that there was no point in ignoring it anymore. If one was to have an open weakness, it was better to acknowledge it and protect it than try to pretend it doesn’t exist. Strange and extraordinary though it is, my feelings for Sherlock are returned. Every day I just cannot believe how lucky I am.

Another thing no one expected Sherlock to be, me included, is demonstrative. Though in hindsight, he pretty much treated my personal space and all my stuff like he owned it even before we got together. Now that we are boyfriends? Partners? Lovers? He likes to…cuddle. We’re using our armchairs less than before because Sherlock likes me to be his pillow while he texts, or his blanket when he’s correcting the people on the telly. Sometimes Mrs Hudson walks in on us in her delivery of baked goods and I’m the only one who finds it embarrassing. I don’t care. What does it matter if I can kiss Sherlock afterwards?

I don’t know if it’s bad that I can refuse Sherlock even less than I could before. I am a fucking pushover. Our relationship has been good for him in that he descends into wall-shooting boredom significantly less, but he’s still insufferable, self-centred, and has no sense of social propriety. He still frames most of his requests as demands. To be really honest, I don’t mind doing things for him, and I get a kick out of his tone (it features in my wank fantasies a lot), but I wish I got some sort of acknowledgement for it. I wish he knew that not all boyfriends are like this. Basically some part of me is waiting for him to pat me on the head, which is quite pathetic.

Still, all those are fickle, little complaints. I don’t care that people might talk. I don’t care that I’m a pushover. I don’t care that I’m still wanking quite a lot. I love Sherlock.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

 


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene Adler rocks Sherlock and John's relationship.

I hate Irene Adler.

I detest her and all that she stands for. I don’t know much about the BDSM community, since I pretend very hard that I’m not interested in any of it, but I don’t need to know anything but my own self to know that what she does is wrong.

People like her are what makes my submissive nature so frightening for me. In my fantasies, I am always safe, so I can imagine my lovers to be as cruel as I like. But if I was to attempt it in real life, I would have to put so much trust in my partner. Trust that her clients put in her. And she used them, manipulated them, while they were at their most vulnerable, offering her something that should be treated with respect.

“I know what they like,” she says, smug and self-satisfied like that was some sort of achievement. 

Being an absolute bastard about it is easy. Surrendering to the temptations that bind you is not. I don’t know what princess or lady it is that she’s blackmailing, but I can imagine how she feels. It would be worse for her, far worse, being a royal, a celebrity, naturally assumed to be prim and proper. How awful it would be to have to talk to the _Queen_ about how you fucked up and put compromising pictures into the hands of a blackmailer because you just love the feeling of suffering? To have to be scared that one wrong move and images of you at your barest and most vulnerable would be splashed across the tabloids, an entire nation whispering and gossiping over your indiscretions and defects? She is not _The Woman_. She is a liar and a rapist.

What’s worse is that Sherlock seems to like her. It’s not that I’m jealous or worried that she’s going to steal my boyfriend. Alright, yes, a little bit. (She sends my boyfriend orgasmic-sounding messages all the time, I’m allowed to be jealous.) But mainly, the fact that Sherlock does not give a fuck about what she does negates all my fantasies of him as a cruel but wonderful dominant. I know that Sherlock never cares that much about the victims. This one is just too close to home. Also, she hit Sherlock and then drugged him before disappearing, leaving his case unfinished, and now Sherlock’s composing fucking sad music? What is going on in there? 

I’m glad she’s dead. People who treat others’ vulnerabilities like poker chips at a casino shouldn’t be allowed to win. 

I don’t know what to say to Sherlock. I think if I try to say anything I will end up sounding like an accusing cheated on wife and then I would never be able to respect myself ever again. I’ll leave him to his sad music. 

 

Note to self: Not all shiny black cars belong to Mycroft. For Christ’s sake, next time I could get into a car with Moriarty if he hired a pretty secretary to call my name.

I cannot believe the nerve of this woman. Sure, I hate her, but for whatever reason Sherlock is in a huge mood over her, and now she’s playing him the way she plays all her little puppets. And she thinks, for some reason, that I would help. 

Does she think I’m a dog?

Oh, yes, apparently. Because she’s just read out to me what she’s been texting him.

“You _flirted_ with Sherlock Holmes? You know, my boyfriend, Sherlock Holmes?”

“At him. He never replies.”

“Thank God for small favours.” 

“Don’t be so jealous, Doctor. I could teach him a few things for you.”

I narrow my eyes, this far away from burning rage. Does she presume that I’m weak, somehow, because of what I like? And how does she know these things?

“What are you talking about.”

“You know.” She smirks at me. “I’m a professional.”

“No, you’re not.”

I’m all but frothing at the mouth, but she isn’t paying attention. 

“There. ‘I’m not dead. Let’s have dinner.’”

“For the record,” I say, trying not to feel like I’m eight years old and explaining to school bullies that taking people’s lunch money is wrong, “What you’re doing is not professional.”

“How would you know?”

That’s the moment when Sherlock’s Irene ringtone echoes through the walls. We both turn pale, probably for different reasons. Sherlock overhearing that conversation could be a bit not good.

 

In the whole ensuing drama with Sherlock possibly crippling an annoying CIA operative, he doesn’t mention Irene, and neither do I. But he seems to have snapped out of the melancholy and into an oddly contemplative mood, so I guess it _was_ Irene’s death he was worried about. 

But the next day, as I’m putting the kettle on, minding my own business, Sherlock pins me to the counter and brushes his riding crop against my cheek. He catches me by surprise, but still, I don’t struggle, allowing him to pin me with both my hands at the small of my back, bent over, legs apart. He is pressed against my backside, the ridge of his cock against my arse. It is all that I never dared to want. My arousal is obvious.

“This is what bothers you so much about Irene Adler. Because she exploits people like _you._ ”

“Safeword,” I bite out, roughly pulling myself from Sherlock’s grip.

“There’s always something,” he mutters.

I am _not_ a deduction. Excruciatingly humiliated, I storm out of the flat. I walk around the block a few times, belatedly realising I’d forgotten my jacket, feeling cold and upset. I can’t put the finger on why I’m so infuriated. Sherlock does much more annoying things than bending me over counters that I don’t mind at all. 

When I get back, Irene Adler is in our apartment. She’s sitting in my armchair, across from Sherlock, and they both look up when I walk in. I grit my teeth, grab my jacket, and go back out the door.

“John.” Sherlock flies down the stairs to grab me before I head out the front door.

I shake him off violently, pushing him back.

“What are you doing to me?” Shit, my voice is embarrassingly hoarse. It’s the wind.

I make an attempt to open the front door, but Sherlock hugs me from behind, his lips on my hair.

Muffled, he says, “John, please, will you trust me?”

He is so warm that it makes me shiver against him. I waver and close my eyes, breathing in his familiar scent, and I cannot imagine pushing him away. I lean into him, sighing.

“Thank you. Come on.”

I follow him upstairs to hear Irene preen about how many other men for whom she “knows what they like”. This is the least fun case we’ve ever been on, I think. None of the others involved watching a seductress flirt with my boyfriend in front of me. Unless I count Moriarty, in which case, he was decidedly less fun and also flirted with Sherlock an awful lot. He and Irene would make a pretty pair. 

I really trust that Sherlock has a plan when Irene hands him a phone, asking him to decipher an undecipherable code, and he looks at it, goes, “Hm. Highly irregular. John, what do you think?”

Sherlock loves codes. He’s the best at codes. And he would die to have the last word. There’s no way he doesn’t have something to say about it other than, ooh this is interesting.

So I catch the phone he throws at me, and when I look at it, it’s open to notes and says “Get MH”. I exchange a look with Sherlock, delete the note, and play stupid. 

“Yeah. No idea. Anyone want tea?”

Irene does more preening, but I’m not worried any longer. I put the kettle on again, and text Mycroft to come at once. 

I’m sat at my laptop with my half-drunk tea when Mycroft arrives. The shock on Irene’s face is satisfying to the extreme.

“I’ve solved your case, brother dearest,” Sherlock goes, making a ‘voila’ gesture at Irene.

“Which one?” Says Mycroft, eyeing Irene distastefully. (But perhaps I’m projecting. That’s just Mycroft’s usual expression.)

“Possibly all of them.”

Looking absolutely delighted, Sherlock produces Irene’s cameraphone, holding it up to the locked screen.

“Your mistake, Miss Adler, was underestimating my dear Dr. Watson. Don’t feel too bad, a lot of people do.”

“What do you mean?”

“You claim to know what people like; you built a life and a business around knowing what people like, and you think you know me. Once I would say that you are not mistaken in assuming that what I like is to revel in my own wit. I am surely a ridiculous man, but I might venture to say that I am redeemed by the warmth and constancy of John’s companionship. Now it is no hardship for me to decipher not only your little puzzle, but the code to your _heart_.”

Sherlock begins to punch in the code to Irene’s phone. 

“Everything I said. It’s not real. I was just playing the game.”

“And this is just losing.”

Sherlock throws the cameraphone at Mycroft. “The rest is your job. Don’t threaten me with a knighthood again, you know how I feel about it.”

Then he turns to me, his eyes warm and shining, waiting for me to praise his brilliance as I always do.

“I love you,” is what comes out of my mouth. Which is awkward, because I hadn’t realised I was going to say that, and now Mycroft is wearing a look between constipated and amused, and Irene Adler looks more deathly envious than I ever was. 

“And what of Miss Adler?” Mycroft interrupts as Sherlock stares back at me.

Sherlock replies, annoyed, “If you’re kind, lock her up, if not, let her go, without her protection I doubt she’d last long.”

“Are you expecting me to beg?”

Sherlock looks at me, his gaze dark as he replies, “Yes.”

I feel a ghost of Irene’s humiliation as she says, “Please. You’re right. I won’t even last six months.”

Sherlock turns back at her, and I look at her too, at the tears threatening in her eyes, and wonder how she had lived before to be so terrified to live life the way everyone else does, without a Get Out of Jail Card.

“Sorry about dinner,” he says dryly. “Now please leave as soon as you can, John and I are planning to have a lot of wildly kinky sex.” 

Then Sherlock makes the best executed dramatic exit of 2011 by disappearing into the bedroom. I see no better choice than to follow after him, where he stands by the bed, looking supremely pleased with himself, and I am ready to burst with unexpected joy as I look at him. 

We burst into giggles. Inappropriate laughter is a cornerstone of our relationship, really.

“Are we really going to have wildly kinky sex?” I say, an age later, sprawled next to Sherlock on his bed.

Sherlock stretches like a cat, and rolls on top of me, pinning me down with the weight of his body.

“If you’re amenable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some people love Irene Adler, but I see the things she does as terrible, and so does John in my story.  
> It's a bit hard to tell what Sherlock is thinking here, as this piece is so John-centric, but I have my head-canon, and I think being in a relationship with John for around eight months would be enough to get Sherlock the emotional development for him to feel as he felt by the time of John's wedding in canon.


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John try to practice good BDSM. It does not go as expected.

Things John Watson is good at:

Shooting a gun; Staying calm in extreme situations; Winning rows with inanimate objects; Blowjobs; Being able to stand Sherlock Holmes for longer than anyone else; Internal sarcasm.

Things John Watson is not good at:

Talking about feelings.

There are other stuff that I am not good at, probably an encyclopedia full, but this is the one I’m having trouble with at the moment.

Sherlock may have been a virgin when we got together, but he is not shy. He wants to know everything he can possibly know about an experience, like:

“How much suction is optimal?” (When he’s giving me head.)

“Is this position more enjoyable than the last one? Why?” (Because the fact that I am six inches shorter than Sherlock doesn’t make for very good standing-up sex.)

“Why do you like swallowing my ejaculate?” (I told him it was neater, but I’m kind of just obsessed with his cock.)

Now that he knows what I like (hahaha), Sherlock is wildly enthusiastic to try all the possible combinations of sex acts that I would find enjoyable. He’s taken to heart how I felt about Irene being a terrible dominatrix, however, and he spent several days absorbed on the internet, looking up everything there is to know about good BDSM practices. Then the questions began.

“What degree of pain is pleasurable for you?”

“How do you feel about sensory deprivation?”

“Bondage?”

“I’ve just discovered this thing called CBT. It’s intriguing but a bit extreme. Would you be open to that?”

“What is it that arouses you, pain or submission or both?”

On one hand, Sherlock talking about things like this in that rich, silky baritone of his makes me embarrassingly flustered. On the other hand, I try to conjure up an answer to such questions and I end up opening and closing my mouth, blushing like a ripe tomato. On both hands, I am so. Embarrassed.

It’s a good kind of embarrassed, if that is a thing. I wander about my day giddy and half-aroused and blushingly mortified just at the thought that Sherlock could do _things_ to me. If I was an idiot before, I’m now one of the premiere idiots in London. The other day I tried to pay for groceries with my tube card because I was too busy thinking “what if Sherlock spanked me until I came untouched”. Now I argue with real cashiers as well as self-check-out machines. I am too stupid to live.

But Sherlock refuses to do anything to me unless I talk to him about it, because apparently that is good BDSM etiquette. Look at that. A year ago I was depressed, crippled, closeted, and denying my submissive side, and now I walk around with a goofy grin, without a limp, and have a gorgeous boyfriend who is trying to learn _good BDSM etiquette_. My head is one of those light switches that’s balanced right in the middle, one side being “what is my life” and the other being “I love Sherlock so badly”. I really do, I love him so much one time I stopped in the middle of the pavement to think about how much I love him. Despite that, so far I have told him about my submissive desires exactly nothing. Zilch. Can’t do it.

Sherlock says that me wanting these things is brilliant. (“Why would you want to be dull? I hadn’t realised sex could be so _interesting_. I understand how people become addicted to sex now.”) He also says that he loves the fact that I want him to take the dominant role. (“Part of the reason I abstained from sex before I met you was that I would have despised being so vulnerable. You are by far the braver man for that.”) I’m so glad he feels that way, but I’ve got this. Mental block. If I was Sherlock I would probably just restructure my Mind Palace or something. But I don’t have a handle on my head like that. I’ve probably got a Mind Underground Tunnel, weaving all over the place, and there’s someone gone and jumped on the rails in Good Communication Station.

It’s probably hypocritical of me, but I wish he would stop asking and just do what he wants. I know he would stop if I really wanted him to. I don’t want to talk about poking needles through my balls. I don’t think it would be nearly as sexy as actually poking needles through my balls. (How would that work though?)

 

Sherlock has a very good way of giving me incentives, though. I wake up to darkness, a cloth over my eyes, my arms and legs tied down with what feels like rope, my skin bare against the sheets.

“Sherlock!” I yell.

“Good morning, John,” he says from right beside me.

“Did you drug me?” Because there’s no way I just slept through all this.

“It was only sleeping pills. I thought you’d appreciate the surprise.”

“That you’d _drugged_ me?”

“Ah. No drugging,” he intones, accompanied by the tapping of keys.

I am starting to feel some de ja vu. 

“Sherlock! Take this blindfold off me.”

Sherlock tugs it off at once, enquiring, “Do you object to it in general, or just without specific consent?”

“I- What?”

“Questions still don’t work then. Pity.” He puts his laptop on the bed beside me, reaching into what I now see is a large cardboard delivery box on my floor, and lifts out a studded black leather paddle.

“Yes or no?”

I swallow, trying to gather some shred of dignity. My morning erection is cowering between my balls.

“I don’t like this,” I manage.

“This?” Sherlock waves the paddle.

“This,” I say, crossly realising I have no limbs to gesture with and therefore indicating the entire situation with a roll of my chin. “It’s too. Clinical. I don’t like it.”

“Oh,” Sherlock says, and blushes, looking embarrassed for the first time I’ve ever seen. 

He hurries to untie me, chucking the ropes into the delivery box, and gives me a hesitant hug. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and pajama bottoms, and his hair smells fresh of his posh, fruity scented shampoo. Not all that intimidating. I should suggest that he get dressed properly before trying to dominate me next time. But now he is just my boyfriend, my Sherlock, fussy and dramatic and incredibly high maintenance, but also curious and brilliant and unexpectedly sweet.

“Sorry?”

Sherlock does not sound quite certain about the whole apologising thing, but it makes my heart melt anyway.


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John have the most emotional sex ever.

It’s the thrill of a case that does it in the end, a mind-fuck rollercoaster involving a murder-suicide that turns out to be a triple homicide. When we get back to Baker Street at about 4 in the morning, we’re giggling about Lestrade’s aghast face when he walked in to find me holding down a bleeding murderer and Sherlock (helpfully) groping my arse. It feels a bit like the first night we spent together chasing after the serial suicide bloke. I suddenly remember that Mrs Hudson is gone to her sister’s and we are all alone in the house. That sobers me up, gets me thinking about entirely less humourous (more smutty) things, and Sherlock stops laughing to eye me, probably deducing exactly what I’m thinking.

It’s suddenly very tense. I feel somehow that anything could happen. Sherlock decides against climbing the stairs to our flat, and leans against the bannisters, watching me. We still haven’t really talked, and it’s been a month. I’m suddenly very certain that I’ve got to do something, and this is the moment, so I kneel in the entry hall, the blood rushing to my ears just from that simple gesture, and, after a bit of deliberation, clasp my hands behind my back. Then I just wait, getting hard in my trousers and dizzy from either all the blood in my crotch or the chemical party starting in my brain.

Sherlock puts his hands in my hair and kind of…pets me. It’s a little humiliating and a little sweet. I lean towards him, opening my mouth without thinking, and rub my cheek against his belt buckle. His trousers are bulging as I mouth his cock clumsily through the fabric.

Sherlock’s breath is coming in shuddering gasps as he pulls away slightly to unbuckle his belt and pull down his flies. We have been running and fighting, and the spice of sweat wraps around the scent of his pheromones. I shift closer, a soft whimper catching in my throat. It smells so good. I want to show Sherlock how much I adore him, all the things I have no words to say.

But Sherlock steps back again. I look up, blinking. Sherlock’s face is silhouetted against the hall light, the angles of his face softened to bring out his eyes even more. 

“Beg,” he says.

I am so hard it hurts. Arousal clings to my veins and crawls up my throat, making my voice a note higher and unsteadier when I say, “Please.”

It’s extraordinary how little it takes to move me; Sherlock wasted his money buying all those freaky toys. Hall light and early morning and Sherlock looming over me, telling me to to _beg_ , and I am embarrassingly, almost in tears. I have to clear my throat to say, again, “Please, Sherlock.”

Sherlock touches my face, and I am a mite horrified that he is wiping away a tear for me.

“Please what?” He says, his voice so soft, so gentle.

Then he grabs my hair and violently pulls me back, forcing me to arch my throat, gasp for breath, blinking rapidly forming tears out of the corner of my eyes.

“Please let me…hn.” I’m ridiculous. I think about Sherlock’s cock all the time. I think the words ‘suck cock’ at least daily. But saying it is mortifying and trying to push past it just makes me want to cry more.

“Come on,” Sherlock says, and tilts his head towards the stairs.

I shift to get up; he puts a hand on my shoulder, shaking his head. Oh. I crawl up the stairs. I think about why I’m crying. I never cry. I can’t remember crying for years. The last time I kind of cried was when a soldier I knew died on the front lines, and I blinked back a sheen of water. That was it. Now, well, I’m hardly bawling, but I have this wobbly feeling that hints if I’m not careful I will burst into full on tears, the kind with uncontrollable hiccoughs and unattractive blotchiness that I haven’t done since I was a child. The weird thing is, I am also absolutely painfully aroused. Why? People aren’t supposed to cry during sex. Those only happen in “worst sex ever” stories. And Sherlock hasn’t _hit_ me. Even if he did, I’ve been in lots of pain without crying. 

I kneel in our bedroom and watch Sherlock undress. I really like being on my knees. It gives me a rush, even if I’m just getting down to check the tinned soup on the bottom row in Tesco. I do that with both knees to the ground, which is a bit weird, possibly, but not enough to turn heads. I had to get my kicks somewhere before I could do this. This is better. I want to be on my knees for Sherlock. I want to drop to my knees for him whenever he enters a room. I want to be small and trembling in front of him, hold out my heart on a slab for him to look at. It’s frightening. That’s probably what’s making me cry.

Sherlock sits on our bed and I kneel between his legs, take his cock in my mouth, and close my eyes. There is ringing in my ears, a salty tang on my tongue. I swirl around, searching for it, dipping lower, growing feverish, my throat vibrating with low moans as I stuff my mouth as full of Sherlock as I can. He tugs at my hair, pushing me down until I gag, again and again and again. All my thoughts are narrowed to this point, to the thought of his pleasure, the desire to please. Sherlock fucks my mouth roughly, increasing the pace every so often. My sound perception suddenly returns (I had not noticed my ears failing me for several minutes) and I hear myself moaning constantly, desperate and wanton, the wet slurp of the back and forth, and Sherlock’s voice, low and tight as a bow, saying, “Yes, John, yes. Good, oh John.”

Then I feel his flesh become tighter in my mouth, and I wrap my lips around the glans, sucking and licking the tip. Sherlock groans my name (“JOHN.”), jerking up, thrusting into my mouth with each spurt. I swallow it down. My body had become so in sync with Sherlock I could feel my heartbeat begin to slow as Sherlock came down from the high of his orgasm. I give myself a mental shake, and begin interpreting the signals of my own body enough to realise that I am so hard I will burst from a touch. 

“Let me,” says Sherlock fuzzily, his words slurred with fatigue. 

“No, I can just,” I say, shifting to rub my groin against Sherlock’s leg. 

I rut against Sherlock until I come (and didn’t start thinking about how demeaning that was until afterwards), and suck a bruise into Sherlock’s pale thigh. It is not my strongest climax, but it is light and sweet and fills my whole body in a way that carries away my exhaustion. 

I climb clumsily into Sherlock’s arms, joints aching from the kneeling, and we kiss wetly and messily through the buzz of pleasure that lasts long after climax. 

“I love you,” says Sherlock, sleepily. “You’re so beautiful on your knees.”

He falls asleep. He snores a little bit too, the bastard. 

I can’t sleep. I stare at him. He’s fast asleep (the sleepless wonder is impossible to wake when he occasionally does sleep), lips parted, stubble growing on his cheek, a lock of curl flattened in the wrong direction under his forehead. Unbearably, adorably human. And the tears return full force, undistracted by sex, and I’m sobbing quietly into my pillow, soaking half the pillow case. Every time I think, “Okay, but why the fuck am I crying?” I just cry some more. Until, finally, I fall asleep with sore eyes, feeling lighter than I have in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I didn't intended for John to get so emotional that he sobs his heart out. But after all the fear and repression, John's finally got what he always wanted. He's a bit wobbly inside. Sexier sex next time?


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock's relationship evolves.

It’s quite interesting how the sex stuff (yeah, I know, I’m thirteen years old) has changed our relationship in general. 

I’m kneeling against Sherlock’s leg, watching TV halfheartedly while he plays with my hair and texts one-handedly. This is nice, quite relaxing, and I get a lovely, low-buzzing arousal that I don’t really need to do anything about. It’s my favourite.

Sherlock’s favourite is actually having me sprawl across his lap for him to kiss and grope and cuddle. We do that a lot, every time he’s bored. He does not seem to give a flying lump of shit that people’s jaws dislocate when they catch us doing that. He cares about people seeing him be extraordinarily fluffy as little as he cares when he freaks people out talking about how much he loves serial killers. His imperviousness to public opinion is his best and worst quality, really. There was this one time we were at a crime scene in someone’s house, he was doing his thing, I was talking to Greg, and he came over and hugged me for a while, breathing in the smell of my hair, while he worked through deductions in his head. All of the metropolitan police force looked like they were going to spontaneously combust, and Sherlock kept shushing me every time I started giggling (because I was distracting his deductions, apparently).

The power he has over me during sex (and all other times, really) seems to have made him a bit more responsible. I swear, I didn’t try. I never thought of being able to change Sherlock Holmes. But now he seems to feel that my wellbeing is his responsibility, the same way that I worry about him when he doesn’t sleep or eat. He stops in the middle of a case because “John requires food”, and he sends me home if we’re out for too long. It’s a bit annoying. But I’m also a bit, hmm, tickled.

Then there’s all the power play stuff. It took him a while, but he eventually realised that I sexualise every order he gives me. (I’m awful.) He thinks it’s funny, and now he’s taken to giving orders with attached threats, like, “make me tea or I’ll spank you.” The thing is, sometimes he makes good on his threats. Now my libido, never very bright, gets confusingly perky at most inopportune moments. Sometimes Sherlock _looks_ at me wrong and I get excited. Sherlock thinks I’m delightful. He says I’m “never dull” and provokes me however he can to see what I’d do, how much I would obey him. Sherlock hates rules that apply to him, but rules that he makes for me, no, he loves those. He’s made up some rules that are quite sexy, like:

-I have to ask him for permission to come. That includes when I have a wank. So when he’s busy with something, and I feel like a wank, I have to tell him. And sometimes he says no.

-When Sherlock snaps his fingers, I drop to my knees. We both like that one, me for the submission, him for the dramatic flair. He abuses it when he’s bored. I snipe at him on my knees. 

-I have to be lubed up and stretched out basically all the time. If I’m not, and he wants a quickie, he’ll just fuck me anyway. Sherlock was a bit worried about injuries regarding that one, but as it turns out, his cock is _not_ big enough to tear me to pieces. 

But then there are the weird ones that he makes up to see if I’ll actually do it, like:

-If I sneeze twice in a row, he gets to spank me ten times. Since then I’ve realised how much I sneeze.

Or the ones where he tries to preemptively stop me from yelling at him, like:

-If I make more than three comments about body parts in one day, I get punished. I get punished a lot. 

And this, which I’ve tried to argue several times, but it’s so much harder now that Sherlock has so many ways to shut me up:

Sherlock pays for things. 

Everything, really. He got me a credit card hooked up to his bank account. (“So the criminal classes know not to kidnap the wrong Sherlock Holmes based on his wallet.”) I still don’t know how rich he is exactly because that’s a really awkward conversation to have. He just generally acts like money is not a concern for him, and so in extension, shouldn’t be for me. When money issues come up, he just tells me to let him pay for it, and thinks I’m very irrational when I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s a bit endearing and a lot worrying, and I don’t seem to be able to make him see why it’s a problem. Because I refuse to use the credit card he gave me, he’s lately taken to slipping banknotes into my wallet and clothes and trying to play it off like I just forgot they were there. (Nice fucking try. I don’t have that many fifties lying around in pockets.) 

This is around the time when Sherlock is getting famous with his string of high profile cases. The media loves that we’re a gay couple, and annoyingly frames Sherlock as a “gay detective” all the damn time. (Yes, media, Sherlock solves cases through the power of gayness. What the fuck is wrong with you lot?) All our public affection keeps getting photographed, and we’ve somehow become a symbol of gay rights. I would get more alarmed at this, but I’m too happy with my life in general to care. But then a random someone asks Sherlock his opinion on gay marriage (because people are pushing for a referendum), and Sherlock says “marriage is an outdated institution pandering to the patriarchy”, and the reporter, not knowing Sherlock, takes him terribly seriously and writes a whole article about it. So I’m getting yelled at on my blog (as no one reads Sherlock’s blog) by conservative people for being a faggot and by gay rights activists for…not being active enough? It’s so bad that I’ve just turned off the comments.

So this is the state of affairs when we went on the Three Garrideb’s case (I said, “Can we find a _little_ case this week please?” It did not end up being a little case.) , and I got stabbed in the leg. Sherlock was furious, and was absolutely going to chuck Garrideb out the window before Lestrade arrived and diverted him. Then Sherlock gets pissed off by hospital staff who won’t let him follow me everywhere because he’s not family. Long story short, when I wake up from my morphine inducted sleep, all stitched up, Sherlock announces, “We’re getting married.”

I go, “What now?”

Sherlock paces the room. Monologues about how it’s the most practical solution. We lead dangerous lives, maybe this time it’s just a small wound, what if next time I get really hurt and stupid nurses won’t let him in my room? I wouldn’t want him to be arrested for murder while I’m in hospital, would I? And surely I would stop being shy about spending his money if we were married, because that’s what married people do, and I am charmingly traditional like that. It wouldn’t change our lives at all but to make it more convenient. The law is not a problem, don’t I worry about that. He’ll find as many insipid reporters as he can and make comments about how much he wants to marry the man he loves. He’ll threaten Mycroft with the favour he owes him from getting into Irene Adler’s phone. Three months tops, he’ll get that damn referendum. John, say something.

“Calm down, I didn’t say _no_.”

“You didn’t say _yes_.”

“You didn’t _ask_.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. Grins. 

“Of _course_ , my John is a romantic. You want a marriage proposal. While I personally object to the idea, I suppose we might as well get all the inane details down if we are to marry.”

He flurries around the room again like an agitated peacock, messes up his hair, then says, “Are you going to be annoyed if I don’t have a ring? Am I supposed to _get on one knee_? Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d appreciate. No, never mind, don’t say anything. I’ll get you out of here first.”

As though realising that he had just had his stupidest moment all year, Sherlock flung himself out of the room. Me? I’m lying in my hospital bed, chuckling at the turnaround. 

Life Update: Possibly getting married to an idiot with nice hair.


	11. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock dies. John does, too.

“My husband…Sherlock Holmes…is dead.”

He isn’t. Strictly speaking. My husband. The wedding had been supposed to be in July.

I don’t know what I’m doing here, really. Therapy didn’t help me last time I was depressed, Sherlock did. Now he’s.

But it doesn’t make sense, does it? How could he be dead? There are still people protesting in his name, saying that he has been vilified, saying that he is the twenty-first century’s Alan Turner, Oscar Wilde. Why would he throw himself off the building where we met, lie to me, make me watch? My Sherlock has never been so cruel.

My Sherlock is not a liar or a fraud.

Yet there he lay still and pale soaked in his own blood, small and lifeless and broken. My Sherlock was always the biggest presence in any room, taking up space, stirring up trouble, how could he fit into something so stifling as a coffin box? 

This is no good. I’ve always been useless at the part where the words need to come out of my mouth. They do fine in my head, but my voice fails me. 

The press hounds me. I feel a bit like punching them in the face, but mostly like I can’t even muster the strength to look at them. How could they ask me to “make a few comments”? What the fuck do they expect me to say? How dare they come bother me when they drove Sherlock to suicide?

It had been going perfectly well until Moriarty turned up again. Really, I should have known that he was going to, seeing as he’s a super villain and super villains rarely just make a few threats only to faff off forever. But I’d gotten the genres mixed up, thought I was in a romcom for some reason. And I’d gone and assumed that I’d made it to the happily ever after phase. I never thought I would make the mistake of being an optimist.

And the thing is, the thing about misery, is that you get used to living with it in increments. It’s a bit like if you’ve lived all your life on the Tibetan highlands, you get used to never having enough oxygen. Some days it doesn’t even bother you, you don’t think about it. But then my eighteen months with Sherlock, it was like he was an oxygen tank. I learned what it was like to have a full lungful of air, and now I’m suffocating.

The worst part is that it doesn’t make any sense. Sure, yes, we got a bit arrested, and we became escaped convicts for a bit. But I was never worried that we weren’t going to make it, that this would be the case that would be our downfall. Moriarty’s scheme was ridiculous. Anyone who knew Sherlock would know that his brilliance was not something that could be faked. I see it in more than our cases, I see it every day. He answers questions I haven’t said out loud because I make a certain expression. He can tell if I’ve gone and sneaked a wank from the wrinkle of my trousers. How do you fake that?

I’m not the only one who believed in him. Despite all the backlash, there were people who we didn’t even know who sent us emails of encouragement. It was a bit bewildering, but apparently, at least a sector of society is of the opinion that a man who kisses his boyfriend in Sainsbury’s just can’t be a scheming con. I’m not sure that logic is sound, but I approve. 

We could have proven Sherlock innocent. It was only a matter of time before the majority of England removed their heads from their arses. What went wrong? Why did he jump?

What did I do wrong?

It’s the day that would have been Sherlock's and my wedding day. Now it is just an ordinary day. I lie in bed staring at the cracks on the ceiling until about 1 in the afternoon. I finally get up for a cup of tea. 

There’s a fortune cookie lying in the middle of the kitchen table. That’s off. I haven’t had Chinese in two weeks at least. It’s wrapped in the plastic packaging, and I open it up, crack it open, and out falls a small white pill and the fortune paper slip, which says, 

_You will be reunited with your loved ones._

I sit there staring at the pill and the paper for a full hour at least. The words don’t form into anything new. The message seems pretty clear, really.

I run a glass of tap water, and wash down the unknown pill.

 

I’m sitting in the V between Sherlock’s legs, my head on his shoulder, legs spread and knees hooked over his thighs. His arms are wrapped around my middle, his lips against the side of my throat, vampire-like. He’s murmuring something, a low rumble in his chest. I am so warm, so drowsy, I am surrounded by Sherlock’s scent. I turn a bit, press closer to him, seek out his lips for a kiss. My limbs feel like lead.

“Am I dead?”

“No. Do you want some water?”

My mouth does taste like cotton. 

“Want you,” I say.

Sherlock has an odd look in his eyes. I’m not awake enough to decipher it.

“You okay?” I say, frowning.

“Presently, yes.”

Okay is okay. I relax again, kiss him more. I squirm around trying to get comfortable, which is hard, because he is all tailored suits and sharp lines. He should wear jumpers. I like jumpers.

Sherlock tries to put me down on the bed, but I cling to him, making an eloquent noise of protest. 

“Sleep it off, John.”

“Don’t go.”

“I’ll be here.”

“I missed you.”

“Yes.”

“Did you have fun being dead?”

“No, not really.” 

I fall back asleep with my head on Sherlock’s thigh, clutching his hand.

 

I am less cuddly when I wake up again. Decidedly less cuddly, with a cracking headache. I remember that I took a Alice In Wonderland-esque pill, then woke up in Sherlock’s arms. I also remember what I didn’t notice last time I woke up, which is that dead people are not supposed to be warm and cuddly, the look in Sherlock’s eyes was guilt, and the word he was muttering into my skin again and again was ‘sorry’.

“Water?” Says Sherlock.

“Water doesn’t solve problems, Sherlock.”

“It might solve your sore throat,” he says primly.

I crack open my eyes to glare at him. He’s still wearing the same suit, slightly rumpled, and a wary expression.

“Why did you let me think you were dead for twenty-seven days?”

“Yes, fair question. But would you like some water first?”

“You have about two and a half minutes to talk before I jump up and strangle you.”

“Moriarty had a sniper following you with orders to kill if I didn’t jump I tried to threaten him but he was mad, quite mad, he shot himself in the head just so I would have to follow him to his death but I found a way to fake it you came back too soon I didn’t mean to make you watch I meant to be back before you’d even seen it on the news but there were complications it was harder than I expected it’s not just the one sniper his spider web is _huge_ , John! I’ve been tracking them down all month but I still haven’t gotten anywhere close to the heart of it I have to dismantle it, John, or we’ll always be in danger, we have to leave, couldn’t do it without you, so I made that pill, did you like the touch with the fortune cookie? You’re officially dead now, welcome to the other side, sorry about the side effects, I was on time constraints.” 

His mouth snapped shut, he stared at me expectantly.

I’m having some emotional whiplash and I don’t know what I feel. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel. God damn it. 

“I’ll have some water.”


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John's honeymoon/assassination trip.

Being dead is alright. Kind of freeing, really.

Sherlock and I are in the touristy area of Prague Old Town, sitting on the outside terrace of an overpriced restaurant with a jug of mojito. Sherlock is in RayBans and a leather jacket. Can you imagine Sherlock in RayBans and a leather jacket? I am into it.

This is our third stop of our Cross-Europe Assassination Tour. We’ve already hit Hungary and Austria. For some reason, Moriarty has a really big presence in the Central and Eastern Europe area. Sherlock and I are patiently picking them off, one by one. It’s shaping up to be a long job, but I’m thinking of it as an extended honeymoon, even though I kind of spent our wedding day dead. Oddly appropriate, that. Then I spent a couple of days feeling sick in bed and watching news on the telly about how "Fraud Detective's Fiance Follows Him In Suicide." There's video footage of me being rolled out of an ambulance in a body bag. Then Mycroft flew us to Budapest on a private plane with a case of semi-automatics. Exciting. I bet we would have gunfights on our actual honeymoon, anyway. Hm, we don’t have a very healthy relationship, do we?

It’s alright. It’s a bit of a struggle, sometimes, but I understand why he did it. I would die for him too. Sometimes I have nightmares about watching him fall to his death and wake up shaking. Then we have slow, sweet sex to remind each other how very alive we are. 

We had an argument the other day, it was stupid. It started off being about Sherlock destroying this blood-stained jumper of mine, but somehow devolved into whom loves whom more. (Yeah, we are so married.) Sherlock thinks it’s ridiculous that I think I love him more. But of course I do. Our relationship is based in that inequality, and I am fine with it. He’s not though, and he’s still kind of sulky about it. (Yep, right now, with the long suffering sighs and gazing away at the big statue at the centre of the square.) 

My argument is as follows:

-I was gone on him basically the moment I saw him. Him, I grew on him and he basically got used to me.

-I am a total pushover for him. I’m not a pushover for everyone, god knows, I am formidable, damn it. Only him.

-I took a pill that for all I knew would have killed me just for the slimmest chance of being with him. 

Sherlock’s argument is basically:

John, you are an idiot.

So forgive me if I’m not very convinced. 

Our partnership is going quite well, though. Sherlock would have been rubbish at this if I wasn’t here, I swear. He’s very smart, but he’s really not cut out for combat. My instincts have saved us half a dozen times already, and, me being the crack shot, I am in charge of the actual killing. He finds them and/or gets us in, I be the gun. This is way more fun than following Sherlock around offering my medical opinion which he mostly doesn’t need. This is something I’m actually better than him at.

Just as I think that there are people who aren’t cut out for murder (most people, me included), there are people who are not cut out for killing at all. I think Sherlock is one of them. Sherlock should never have blood on his hands, it would break him a little bit, even if it was the worst person on earth. It sounds so soppy, but let me try to explain it: Sherlock has the sort of brilliance that is aloof from this earth. Untouched. Detached. He could look at a thousand crime scenes and gorily murdered bodies and deduce, apprehend, and condemn, but that’s like being an art enthusiast or a video gamer. Killing is different, I would know. I want to protect him from that. I’m doing alright so far.

Sherlock is my captain, my commander, I will always go where he leads me. I wonder sometimes about what’ll happen when we’re done with all this and still technically dead. Are we going to wander back into London on April Fool’s Day and be the best prank of the year? Is Mrs Hudson going to have a heart episode from the shock? Will Mycroft come up with an excuse for why we were dead from the same place he’s getting me all these guns and ammo (possibly his arse)? But I’m not worried that I don’t have an answer. It will work out, it always does.

I miss London sometimes, I know Sherlock does too. It’s our city. Prague is beautiful, but it’s a place for fairytales and overlords, not for living, not for a detective and his blogger. I miss going down to the pub with Greg to have our weekly “snipe about Sherlock” pint. Now I have to have that pint with Sherlock and the pint is whiskey neat and the sniping is met with protests and it’s not nearly as fun. I miss my Yorkshire Gold, this tea they’ve got going on in Prague is a joke. Those are all of my beverage themed complaints. 

But anyway, honestly, I like my life. It’s not where I expected to be, definitely not. All the fake passports and secret compartments to hide my guns and having a secret service serial number, it’s crazy.

But you know what? I’ve accepted my crazy. I like my crazy. I still don’t know why I am the way I am, why I can execute a man with a steady hand but still tremble and whimper at Sherlock’s feet. I have spent long enough trying to be respectable and looking for answers, now I’m fine with just doing what feels right. 

I’m John Hamish Watson. Sometime son, brother, doctor, soldier, blogger, detective, lover, masochist, submissive, assassin.

It’s all fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~End~
> 
> Writing this has been the best. Thanks and love to everyone who left encouraging comments!


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